Helen Varley Jamieson and Paula Crutchlow will be working as Artists in Residence at HTTP, Furtherfield’s Gallery and lab space in July 2010. During this residency Helen and Paula will work on their make-shift project.

Events related to this residency:

make-shift presentation by the artists at HTTP Gallery, 22 July 2010.
More information about this work in progress presentation.

“make-shift is an intimate and participatory performance event that explores the fragile connectivity of human and ecological relationships. Part recital, part discursive salon the performance uses online audio-visual conferencing, chat and performance tools to connect two ordinary living-rooms and their audiences across geographical and cultural distance.”
http://make-shift.net/

Helen Varley Jamieson is a writer, theatre practitioner and digital artist from New Zealand. In 2008 she completed a Master of Arts (research) at Queensland University of Technology (Australia) investigating her practice of cyberformance – live performance on the internet – which she has been developing for over a decade. She is a founding member of the globally-dispersed cyberformance troupe Avatar Body Collision, and the project manager of UpStage, an open source web-based platform for cyberformance. Using UpStage, she has co-curated online festivals involving artists and audiences around the world. Helen is also the “web queen” of the Magdalena Project, an international network of women in contemporary theatre.
www.creative-catalyst.com

Paula Crutchlow lives with her family in Exeter, Devon. She graduated in Dance from De Montfort University, and in 2000 completed an MA in Devised Theatre at Dartington College of Arts, UK where she is now an Associate Lecturer in Theatre. Paula has worked in Britain and internationally as a performer, director and tutor of movement and devised theatre. As a co-founder and Artistic Director of Blind Ditch she has collaborated on context-specific collaborative art, performance and cultural events which engage audiences and participants in distinct ways through the use of digital media and live performance.
www.blindditch.org

>> make-shift work in progress presentation by Helen Varley Jamieson and Paula Crutchlow

Thursday 22nd July 7pm
HTTP Gallery
RSVP: brokers@make-shift.net

You are invited to attend and actively contribute to a work in process sharing of make-shift – a networked performance about connectivity and consequences.

Helen Varley Jamieson (NZ/Europe) and Paula Crutchlow (UK) are artists from different performance backgrounds whose new collaboration, make-shift, explores meaningful ways of engaging in discussion across physical and digital networks. make-shift will be a salon-style event, taking place simultaneously in two domestic spaces (with one artist present in each space) and also online.

The process of making make-shift has begun with a two-week residency at Furtherfield.org, London, and in this presentation the artists would like to share some of their research and try out some ideas. You will be asked questions and invited to contribute your expertise, experience and opinions to this process. The artists are working in the spaces between disciplines and genres and are deliberately inviting people from a range fields to get a range of input. Your contribution to this will be very much valued.

You must RSVP (to brokers@make-shift.net) as the proximal audience is limited (there will also be the opportunity to participate online if you are not in London or can’t get to the event). Everyone who is attending is asked to collect their plastic rubbish over a 24 hour period and bring it to the presentation (please wash anything that had food in it!)

We also need two volunteers to prepare specific tasks before the event – please email brokers@make-shift.net if you would like to volunteer.